SPYDERMAN INTERVIEWS GREENGUY, THE MAN BEHIND LINK-O-RAMA
AN ADULT WEBMASTER NEWS EXCLUSIVE!
Greenguy's Link-O-Rama has evolved into one of the adult web's largest link sites. It
consistently rates in the Top 10 of all link lists. AWN spoke with it's creator and founder,
"Mark Jenkins, alias, "Greenguy," about what it takes, how it got started, and where it's
all going.
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THE INTERVIEW
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Q: Please give our readers an overview of how you got started with your
website? First, tell us when you started it, and what brought it about,
and how has it evolved?
A: It started as a shits & giggles kinda thing. A good friend of mine was
going to school at RIT, which is where he 1st experienced the net. He
decided to start up a little homepage called "Zippy & Blamo's Wonderful
World of Links" (I think the address was
http://www.angelfire.com/free/rattlesnake.html ) At the same time he
was doing that, I has just got my 1st home computer & was playing
around with AOL - not so much the internet, but all the other stuff that
you can only get from AOL. When he came back to visit one weekend, he
stopped by & showed me his page & how many hits it was getting & whatnot
& it simply amazed me. Not that the page was getting tons of traffic
(avg was around 200) but that 200 people actually went & looked at this
page that he created. The page was a combo of adult, music, sports &
game links. He said "You should start one up, too." So we did. We
went over to angelfire.com & got a free page at
http://www.angelfire.com/pages01/greenguy/index.html . Thus the
Greenguy was born.
The page started out with 10 or so links to sites with free pics. No
advertising or anything, jsut a few links & alot of graphics (it really
had that "homepage" look) It had a day-glo grene background with pink
text & links (almost like a big watermelon) I worked on the site when I
had free time, adding links to it & submitting it to search engines,
which is where I got most of my traffic because I had no idea what a
"link trade" was. Then someone noticed that I had their link on the
site & told me that they would put my link on their pages. After I
realized that people would actually send me traffic back, things got
messy. First thing was that I got into XPics (didn't everyone use XPics
at 1st?) & started to make around $50.00 a month - YIPEE! At that time,
that was a large amount of money for me - hell, that would pay off the
computer! But, when I started to get around 2000 hits a day,
angelfire.com shut me down :( No warning or nothing, just pulled my
page & would not let me upload. I complained & begged & offered them
free advertising, but they would not let me continue. So, having no
home for about a week or so, I emailed one of the friendly webmasters
that I had met along the way - Joe from noodtech.com . Joe was also
bing hosted for on his dial-up & was getting too big for them to
handle. He was about 1 week away from moving to his own domain. So, he
sorta hired me on as his "linksmaster" where the Greenguy would do all
his linking. Thus, http://www.noodtech.com/greenguy/ was born.
The site started to get a decent amount of hits & link requests soon
after I changed the format from 1 page to categories of links. Then
started the copy-cat sites. I saw other "Link O'Rama's" popping up left
& right! To settle once & for all who the only Link O'Rama was, we got
the link-o-rama.com domain.
Now it's just one big monster that I can't control :)
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Q: What is your main business objective with your site?
The main business objective for myself, personally, would be to pay the
mortgage on my house. The benifits that are included is that I get to
help others do the same thing :) I not here to lose money, but I don't
want to turn my site into some cheap-ass banner farm with consoles &
pop-up's all over the place just to make myself the richest guy on the
block. I here for three reasons: myslef, the surfers & other
webmasters. (that is in no particular order, I like to think of them as
all equal)
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Q: Do you use special software to create the links?
A: Not to create them. I do this whole site by hand. Sure, I have a stats
program to tell me when & how many & whatnot and I have a link-bot that
looks for dead or redirected URL's, but for the most part, I type out
all the html on all the pages by hand (call me old school)
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Q: Do you work your site full time?
A: No, I have my "other" job - mostly for the health insurance (family of 5
is expensive when it comes to health insurance)
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Q: What do you see as the future of the Internet, and also your site ?
A: I think the future is probably already here - webcams. Not that nothing
else will ever come of the adult internet, but I think that as
technology advances & these webcams get crisper & clear & have audio,
that will eventually be the ticket.
As for the future of my site, well, I assume that there will always be
adult sites & that I'll always be here to weed thru them for the
surfers.
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Q: Approximatly how much revenue does your site generate per month?
:)
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Q: How long did it take to get to this point?
A: I've been doing this since July of 96 - didn't get real popular until
August of 97.
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Q: How do you handle checking to see if reciprocal links are
being put up?
A: I go to each & every site that submits a link to me via my link request
page. After that, meaning once I've linked to them, I didn't really
check all that much. Maybe a page a week or so. But now, with the help
of my RIT friend, we are going thru each & every link on the site &
verifying reciprocal as well as other rules. This is a very time
consuming process, with the 2300+ links I have.
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Q: How does your link program help adult webmasters get more hits?
A: I have a fair amount of traffic. Right now, depending on waht stats
program I look at, it's between 50-75K per day to the main page (also
depending on the day of the week - not too many surfers on on the
weekends) All those surfers have to go someplace, right? And with 35+
categories to choose from, everyone seems to be happy.
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Q: Can you recommend any suggestions on how new webmasters can generate
income with their websites?
A: Just keep it clean. You want people to come back the next day or next
week, right? Give them a reason to come back. No one want to see the
same pics day in & day out. Alos, be creative with the site - humor
goes along way :)
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Q: What are the advantages for adult webmasters to sign up for links with
you?
A: Traffic - plain & simple.
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Q: How do you budget your time each day? What's an average work day for
you, how many hours?
A: I spend around 30-40 hours a week on the Link O'Rama. I've been taking
the weekends off lately so that I don't go insane - "All work & no beer
makes Greenguy something something..."
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Q: Any tips, tricks or suggestions?
A: Yes: GET OUT WHILE YOU STILL HAVE A LIFE!!!!!!!!
Really, just try & be honest & put up a good clean site. Surfers will
appreciate that & come back the next time.
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Q: What is your sales pitch to our readers?
A: Free lolli-pops to the 1st hundred people to read this article!!!!!!
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Anyway, that's how I remember it :)
Mark Jenkins - Greenguy
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